Remember how for
these forty years the Lord, your God, has directed all
your journeying in the wilderness, so as to test you by affliction, to know
what was in your heart: to keep his commandments, or not. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you
might know that it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that
comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.[1]
What is the goal we are looking to
attain? For most, I would assume it is
salvation. There are many who think that
they have already attained this goal; however, Scripture teaches us that there
are three aspects of salvation: past, present, and future. We have been saved; we are being saved; and
we will be saved. This is why St. Paul
tells us that we must persevere to the end.
Perhaps, it would be better if we changed, not our goal, but the
description of the goal: to be like Christ.
This is, after all, what salvation encompasses. “See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world
does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children
now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is
revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has
this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.”[2] When we see this as our ultimate goal—instead
of just being “saved”—then we start asking for things to that end.
…so
as to test you by affliction, to know what was in your heart: to keep his commandments,
or not. To “know what was in your heart” means to “prove.” God already knew their hearts; He needed to
prove to them, individually and as a community, what was in their hearts. Jesus, the Son of God, is also wholly
man. Therefore, He was also tested and “proven”
to the Church and the human race. We
learn from St. Catherine of Sienna: “…A man proves his patience on his neighbor
when he receives injuries from him. Similarly,
he proves his humility on a proud man, his faith on an infidel, his true hope
on one who despairs, his justice on the unjust, his kindness on the cruel, his
gentleness and benignity on the irascible. Good men produce and prove all their virtues
on their neighbor, just as perverse men all their vices; thus, if you consider well,
humility is proved on pride in this way.”[3] We see this in Jesus, in His words and
actions.
Another thing of interest which we
learn from the saint is when God teaches her: “The Devil…is the instrument of
My Justice to torment the souls who have miserably offended Me. And I have set him in this life to tempt and
molest My creatures, not for My creatures to be conquered but that they may
conquer, proving their virtue, and receive from Me the glory of victory. And no one should fear any battle or
temptation of the Devil that may come to him because I have made My creatures
strong and have given them strength of will, fortified in the Blood of my Son,
which will (the will of the mind) neither Devil nor creature can move, because
it is yours, given by Me. You therefore,
with free arbitration, can hold it or leave it, according as you please. It is an arm which, if you place it in the
hands of the Devil, straightway becomes a knife with which he strikes you and
slays you. But if man do not give this
knife of his will into the hands of the Devil--that is, if he does not consent
to his temptations and molestation--he will never be injured by the guilt of
sin in any temptation but will even be fortified by it, when the eye of his
intellect is opened to see My love which allowed him to be tempted, so as to
arrive at virtue, by being proved. For
one does not arrive at virtue except through knowledge of self and knowledge of
Me, which knowledge is more perfectly acquired in the time of temptation
because then man knows himself to be nothing, being unable to lift off himself
the pains and vexations which he would flee; and he knows Me in his will, which
is fortified by My goodness, so that it does not yield to these thoughts. And he has seen that My love permits these temptations,
for the devil is weak and, by himself, can do nothing unless I allow him. And I let him tempt, through [My] love and not
through hatred, that you may conquer and not that you may be conquered, and
that you may come to a perfect knowledge of yourself, and of Me, and that
virtue may be proved, for it is not proved except by its contrary.”[4] This,
we also see in Jesus.
It is not that God enjoys seeing us
being persecuted and suffer; it is God teaching us what being human really
means. One of the reasons the Son of God
became man was not to make us something that we were not created to be but to
show us what being human really meant. Mankind
was not created to be prideful, hateful, lustful, etc. Jesus shows us what being human is all about.
He is the perfect human being. Yes, by His Incarnation, Passion, Death, and
Resurrection, He has made us more than what we were, by allowing us to share
His divine nature, but He also shows us how to be human, not brute animals with
a will.
He
therefore let you be afflicted with hunger…
He allowed the Israelites to hunger in the wilderness in order to prove
to them what was in their hearts. What
was proven to them: They hungered for the temporal, not for God. They were given food of the earth; nevertheless,
they still died. If they hungered for
God, they would have eternal life. They
desired to please their bodies more than desiring God. This is one of the reasons we fast; this is
one of the purposes of Lent. Allowing
our bodies to hunger should redirect our minds on the fact that we need to
hunger for God.
…and
then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you might
know that it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes
forth from the mouth of the Lord. Of
course, this points to the Eucharist. We
are to fast at least one hour before receiving the Eucharist. This hour is to turn our minds to the fact
that, if we hunger for God, He will give us Himself.
It was easy for me to join the
Marine Corps. All I had to do was pass a
test and take an oath. However, it took
much more than to remain a Marine. I had
to desire to remain a Marine, and I had to be obedient. In the Church, we do not “join” an
organization; we become a part of a living organism, a Body, the Body of
Christ. We are not yet what we will
become. Because of that, we need to be
yearning for what we are to become. This
is another reason we should desire the Eucharist: to become what we eat. If we are just looking for to being saved
from hell, we are missing everything. If
we are looking at growing more and more into the image of Christ, yearning for
the day it is accomplished, we gain everything, including being saved from
hell. We are still undergoing our forty
years in the wilderness. The Lord, our
God, is directing all our journeyings, so as to test us by affliction, to prove
to us what was in our hearts: to keep his commandments or not. If we hunger for Him, He will feed us a food
unknown to others so we might know that it is not by bread alone that people
live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord. Let us ask ourselves again: Are we just attempting
to escape hell, or are we yearning and attempting to attain the image of Christ
through a cooperation with the grace and mercy of God?
[1] New American Bible,
Revised Edition., (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, 2011), Dt 8:2-3.
[2] New American Bible,
Revised Edition., (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, 2011), 1 Jn 3:1–3.
[3] Catherine of Siena, Saint. The Dialogue of Saint Catherine
of Siena (Kindle Locations 566-571). Kindle Edition
[4] Ibid., (Kindle Locations 1361-1375). Kindle Edition
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